The Origin of Dracula (17 page)

The door swung open and Lee stepped inside. His eyes immediately fell on the dog. “Holy shit!” he said. “How the hell did it get in here?”

“It morphed into you and walked in,” I said, accepting as fact something I would’ve dismissed as fiction just hours ago.

Lee cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t get it either,” I said.

Lee approached his uncle. “Harry—what’s going on?”

“We gotta get out of here. Right now. That’s what’s going on.”

“What’s the rush? It looks like you took care of business.”

“Business ain’t over.”

“Okay, then fill me in.”

“We gotta get outta here first.”

“What the fuck is going on, Harry?” This time I was happy that Lee’s anger was calling the shots. I wanted answers too.

“It’s a long story,” Harry said.

And that was my cue to chime in. “My bet is that it’s the exact story we came here to hear.”

“Well, you ain’t gonna hear it now, boys.” Harry rolled his wheelchair across the room. “We’re sitting ducks.” He stopped in front of a closet and opened it. “Now get over here, Lee, and grab the guns.” He pointed to a metal box at the back of the closet. “And the ammo.”

“We need to hear that story now,” Lee said.

“I told ya—we don’t got time.”

Lee didn’t push it. He walked over to the closet and dragged the box out.

“Harry,” I said, impatient and starving for information, “you were waiting for something to show up. How did you know it would?”

“I got lucky—I don’t wait every night. Maybe ten times a year. Tonight was one of those nights. I guessed pretty good, huh?”

Lee opened the box and grabbed a rifle and pistol from inside. He tried to hand me the pistol, but I wouldn’t take it. I just shook my head. You’d think by now I’d be ready to dish out some vigilante justice, or, at a minimum, use lethal force to protect Nate, but I had been bred to have an aversion to guns, and it was going to be hard to overcome it.

Lee grabbed two boxes of ammo, then went into Harry’s bedroom and returned with an army duffel bag. He stuck the rifle, pistol, and ammo inside.

Harry thrust his own rifle toward Lee. “Stick this in there too. Can’t be wheeling through the hallways with it. And gimme the pistol.”

Lee loaded the pistol, then handed it to Harry, who stuffed it between his thigh and the wheelchair. “Okay—let’s go,” Harry said.

“Where to?” Lee stuck the duffel bag on Harry’s lap and pushed the wheelchair toward the door.

“There’s a place that’s kinda safe.”

“Kind of?” I didn’t think that sounded too promising.

“It kept me safe,” Harry said. “But you boys are in all sorts of trouble, aren’t ya?”

On the way downstairs, and in the elevator, Lee gave Harry a CliffsNotes version of our fateful night at Cold Falls. He told it as a tale of self-defense, explaining that the strange man had hunted him down through the foggy night.

“I had to push him over or he would’ve killed me,” Lee said.

“Don’t make no difference,” Harry said.

“What are you talking about?” Lee voiced my exact thought.

Harry didn’t bother to answer. We were now in the parking lot, and he was focused on our surroundings with keen concentration—every muscle in his body was taut. Lee helped him into the back seat of my car, then folded his wheelchair, which I put in the trunk along with the duffel bag.

As I backed out of my parking space, Lee asked Harry where the place was that he wanted to go, the place that was safe.
Kind of
.

“My old place—on Glebe,” Harry said.

Lee shook his head. “We can’t. Someone’s living there.”

“Nah, that’s not what I mean. Just go to that block. He don’t like it there.”

“Who’s
he
?’” I said.

“
He’s
what my story’s about.”

“Let’s hear it, Uncle Harry,” Lee said, then gave me my marching orders. “Head to Glebe and Columbia Pike.”

“What happened to the third boy you said was camping with ya at Cold Falls?” Harry asked.

“Quincy’s dead,” Lee answered. “Drowned.”

I looked at Harry in the rearview mirror. “Do you know who killed him? Who killed our wives?” My patience was running thin. Probably because my belief system was cracking. After all, it was hard to admit to myself that a rabid dog had fooled me into thinking it was Lee.

“Let him tell the story,” Lee said. “Stories tell you all you need to know.”

“Damn right,” Harry said.

I took a deep a breath and let it out. Apparently Lee was now the patient one. At least, patient enough to sit through one of Uncle Harry’s stories rather than get right to the point.

“Lee, first I gotta fess up,” Harry said. “I didn’t lose my legs in combat. I told you that ’cause there was no reason to tell you any different. You were a kid and you didn’t need to know the truth. But I told your daddy the truth. He didn’t believe me, but I can’t really blame him. He thinks the curse is just some kind of bad luck. He don’t understand the curse, because it’s got nothing to do with him.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the Bellington curse?” Lee said.

“Not in the way your daddy does.”

“But you always told me it was bullshit.”

“It’s bullshit when it comes to thinking of it like bad luck.”

“You’re saying you believe it?”

“Listen, I didn’t tell you nothing before because I was hoping you’d get off scot-free. Your daddy did.”

“But his life is a mess.”

“That’s just it. His life is a mess because he made it that way. The curse ain’t about that. It’s more like the Hatfields and McCoys. But one side, one family, is always on the run. We’re that side. And it’s not all Bellingtons that get messed with. Like I said, your daddy got off scot-free. His problems ain’t nothing but his own fault. For me—well, that ain’t the case. And from what I’m hearing tonight, it ain’t the case for you either.”

And why am I involved?
I thought. I wasn’t a Bellington. I wasn’t a Hatfield or McCoy. Was it just because I’d become friends with the wrong kid in middle school? Had my parents been right when they’d warned me, “Don’t hang out with the wrong kids”?

“When I was young, I was strong as an ox,” Harry continued. “I was captain of the football team. And it wasn’t just any team. We were state champs, and that was something back then. This was prime football country, and our team—the Washington-Lee Generals—we were the best of ’em.

“But I wasn’t dumb like most of the other players. I knew that football was gonna end. Even if you got a couple more seasons of glory in college, it was gonna end. So I didn’t see no use in puttin’ it off. I had a hell of a good run with the Generals, so I figured I might as well start in on a career. I signed up for the Marines.”

We were back on Route 66, where the glow of the vapor lights along the freeway became the campfire around which Harry told his story.

“That turned out to be the right choice,” he said. “They told me I had the brains to be an officer, and that was good enough for me. They sent me to boot camp in South Carolina. For everyone else, that part was hard. For me, it was a piece of cake. I set records on some of the obstacle courses. Yeah—I did real good.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror and caught Harry looking down at his legs. I didn’t see regret on his face, but I thought I saw a flicker of determination. As for myself, I felt a pang of sorrow.

“I did so good in fact, that I got sent up to Quantico when I was done. That’s where the smart ones got sent—for more specialized training. If I had stayed in South Carolina, would it’ve made a difference? Maybe I would’ve been safe. Who knows?

“Anyway, at Quantico, I was getting trained in targeting. My days were jam-packed. Both classroom learnin’ and practice. No boozing for me. No women neither. Just didn’t have the time. But I felt good. Better than I ever had.

“Then one night Art Craig—he was my best buddy at Quantico—and me drove out to Dumfries for a bachelor party. It wasn’t a big deal kinda party like ya see nowadays. We’re talking a hotel room, a couple of strippers, and drinking. And even that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, because most of the fellas were married and had to work the next day. Art and me had to report at oh six hundred, so we headed back about one in the morning. Art was drunk, and I was pretty wired up too, but not as bad as him.

“Art was drivin’, and back then no one gave a rat’s ass about drivin’ drunk. But that ain’t what did us in. What did us in was Art’s clunker. That car wasn’t fit for the road. But it was never a big deal until that night. It wasn’t like we really needed cars. Like I said, our days were jam-packed, so there was no time to do nothing else or go anywhere. And everything was on base. Still, I guess you wanna have some freedom. Too bad.”

Harry paused, and I glanced at the rearview mirror again. This time we made eye contact, and he turned up the corners of his mouth in a
what the hell can you do
grimace of disgust at himself.

“Anyway, we were driving down Joplin Road through Prince William Forest Park,” he said. “It’s old land. They keep it wild.
Untouched
, they call it. They say it ain’t changed since the start of our country. It was Chopawamsic land back then.”

Lee looked over at me. As I said, the guy was smart. I knew he’d just made the same connection I had, even though it wasn’t a strong connection—at least not yet. Cold Falls was old land, prime Native American land, glorified land. Or so we’d believed as kids.

“The clunker started huffin’ and puffin’ like it was gonna conk out and die,” Harry said. “Then it did, right there on goddamn Joplin.
And
it didn’t wanna start up again. So we got out and pushed it over to the shoulder, then talked about hitching a ride back. But we decided against it. What if an officer from the base pulled over? He’d see we were drunk. There was no hidin’ that. He might do nothing, or he might report us, dependin’ on the officer and the mood he was in. So we decided to walk back instead.

“Now, that wasn’t such a bad idea. The bad idea was the next one. We decided to cut through Prince William Forest. That way there’d be no chance an officer would spot us. Yeah, that was a dumb move. So we started through the woods, and it was dark as hell. But we didn’t think about that until we were too far from the road. And by then it was too late. We were lost. All your training goes out the door when you’re drunk.

“But after wandering a little ways, the dark sobered us up—just enough that one part of our training came back. We found a patch where we could see up through the trees to the sky, and we picked out some constellations. Then we were able to figure out what direction the base was in.

“It was slow going at first, but we sobered up some more and got on track. And that was when we heard someone followin’ us. It could’ve been an animal. But if it was, it was a mighty big one. We could tell by the footfalls. So we figured it was a man, and we stopped to check it out—which ain’t easy in the dark, no matter what your training is. But we didn’t hear nothin’ and we didn’t see nothin’. The guy only moved when we did. He wasn’t stupid.

“So we kept going, and then it started to get a little foggy, which wasn’t helping none. So we sped up the best we could to get away. Now, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like we were scared, but something didn’t feel right, you know? Like this woods wasn’t our place. Like we were trespassing or something.

“Anyway, because of the noise we were making in the brush—louder now ’cause we were going faster—we couldn’t hear if he was still followin’ us or not. And we were good for a while. I was in the lead. I was better at navigating, checking the constellations and adjusting our direction. But it was gettin’ harder. The fog was gettin’ thicker so it was harder to see the sky. And then the woods started to stink, like there was a rotting animal around.

“A few seconds later, Art screamed out. I looked back, figuring he tripped or ran into something, but he must’ve been hurt bad for him to be yelling like that. Turns out Art was down on the ground and another man was standing over him. Art was floundering around, tryin’ to get up, but he just couldn’t do it. The fella standin’ over him had already taken him down. But the thing was, I could see the guy wasn’t beefy. He looked skinny and weak. Sure, he was tall all right—real tall—six ten, maybe seven foot. But I didn’t see where the strength was from. He’d put Art down, which wasn’t an easy thing to do. And the weirdest thing: he was wearing camo, like he was a marine. But no one on base was that tall.

“Course, that wasn’t going through my mind right then. The only thing I was thinking was to go help Art. And that’s what I did. But when I got close, close enough to see Art’s face—it wasn’t a pretty sight, crushed and bloody—the tall man swung his arm at me and sent me smashing into a tree. His arm was like a goddamn club.

“I picked myself back up, ready to jump him, but it was too late. I heard a nasty cracking sound—bones breaking—and Art wasn’t trying to get up no more. The tall man stood up from Art, and I saw that Art’s head was sideways. His neck was broke.

“Then I looked at the man, and caught sight of his face for a second. He’s as calm as the night. His face is kinda soft, and there ain’t no sign that he’s upset or angry or nothing. He’s as calm as an animal going about its life. A well-bred animal. And that calm tells me what I should do next.

“I ain’t never run from anything, but this guy’s got a look that’s tellin’ me to get the hell out of there. Besides, Art was already dead. No question about that. So I ran. Didn’t get but three yards away when I felt him grab my legs. I went down hard, face first. Didn’t know how he caught me so fast. He just wasn’t close enough. But I didn’t have time to worry about that.

“He was pressin’ down on the back of my legs, and I was sure he was gonna move up and snap my neck. I tried to twist around to fight him face to face, but he kept pressing on my legs. A raw sting—burning hot—shot through them, God-awful, and so bad that I screamed out, and then it got worse, shooting through all of me, like lightning made of pain. I heard a cracking sound before I even felt it. He was crushing my legs, and I was screaming so loud that I couldn’t think straight.